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The first time it happens, Mrs. Hudson finds him curled on the floor beside Sherlock’s bed in a pool of his own vomit. She thinks he is dead, though the paramedics tell her that he has a pulse. It is a week until he’s out of the psychiatric ward following the overdose, and he’s placed directly into group grief counselling from there. No-one looks at him the same way afterwards. He learns to stop making eye contact.
The second time it happens, Mrs. Hudson is away. It is Lestrade who arrives at the flat just in time to hold his wrists together while they wait for the ambulance. The floor is sticky with blood. Lestrade is furious—John is quiet. He does not fight the other man, but when Lestrade turns at the sound of the siren, the doctor makes an abortive move towards the razor again, as though he’s forgotten that there’s another man trying to keep him from bleeding out. Lestrade stares at him, then looks away.
The third time it happens, it is Mycroft’s surveillance team that mobilizes and pulls him down from the roof before he can jump. They are gentle, but firm in their restraint. Mycroft himself is waiting when they bundle him down the stairs to the waiting car. The older man’s face is white and his mouth set in a thin line. He speaks at length, but John hears nothing of what is said.
The fourth time it happens, Molly wrenches him out of the street just as the lorry screams past. She slaps his face so hard it brings tears to her eyes. She calls him a selfish prick— did he not see her there? Did he think she deserved to see him crushed into the pavement? He watches her dully as she calls Lestrade for help. It is the last day he spends in 221b Baker Street.
The fifth time it happens, it is because one of the nurses in the ward becomes lazy and leaves a towel where John can get at it. It does not take long to find him, as the surveillance is tight. They resuscitate him when he smothers. The nurse is fired. John is heavily sedated.
***
The last time it happens is over two years later. He has, according to record, been rehabilitated. John has been out of the hospital for months, but has not made the effort to get back in touch with anyone. His days are a medicated blur of mechanical routine, and he feels nothing.
He walks the distance to the cemetery to stand before the black stone. And when he kneels, and pulls the gun from his jacket pocket, the cold metal feels safe in his hand. This time, there will be no interference. Nobody to interrupt his attempt to finish what was started with Sherlock’s fall. John gently nudges the barrel under his chin, and stares at the chiselled letters on the stone before him. His finger tightening on the trigger is the last sensation he feels before everything goes white—and then black.
When he awakens, his head aches and his mouth is dry.
“I’m sorry, John,” a quiet voice speaks somewhere out of sight.
John turns his head stiffly and squints at the dark shape above him. “What--?”
“I wouldn’t advise you to move. You almost certainly have a concussion.” The figure bends closer—there’s a rustle of fabric, and a scent that makes John stop breathing. “I hit you rather harder than I intended, though you have to admit you gave me little choice in the matter. Your head impacted with the gravestone.”
John swallows. “Sherlock.”
“Obviously.”
“How--?” John tries to sit up—a gloved hand pushes him back down to the couch. “But you’re--”
“Alive, yes. And so are you, no thanks to your own rampant stupidity. Whatever possessed you to—"
John’s hand grasps, fists itself in Sherlock’s coat, and drags the taller man towards him. The fevered press of his lips is rough and desperate.
“…Oh,” Sherlock says, when John allows an inch of space. His eyes are soft, his voice low. The taller man's impossibly long form folds itself into a more comfortable position, kneeling by the couch. He removes John’s fist from his coat, clasping the trembling hand in a cage of long fingers. There are no more words.
When Mrs. Hudson finds them there hours later, she has the decency not to scream.